Visitor numbers to two of Copenhagen’s most prominent museums are in freefall since they re-introduced admission prices at the start of the summer, reports Metroxpress.
READ MORE: Denmark’s two largest museums no longer free
Down as much as 30 percent
The decline has been most severe at Nationalmuseet (National Museum of Denmark), where numbers have fallen by 30 percent since the change. Its tickets cost 75 kroner per adult.
Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Art), which normally receives 450,000 visitors every year, estimates that it is receiving 3,400 fewer per month – the equivalent of only a 9 percent fall. Its tickets cost 110 kroner.
Addressing the cuts
The museums introduced the admission fees in response to budget cuts imposed by the Venstre-government last year.
Statens Museum for Kunst is charged with saving about 16 million kroner over the next four years.
However, children can still visit both museums for free.
Hopeful they will return
Both museums are hopeful the visitors will return when they have acclimatised to the prices.
“We saw the same thing happen in Sweden,” Nationalmuseet vice-director Camilla Mordhorst told Metroxpress.
“After four to five years, they had regained the number of visitors, and it is the same strategy that we are working with.”
